This study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by introducing emotional intelligence (EI) as an additional factor that explains how entrepreneurs perceive their own success. Using survey data from a sample of Dutch entrepreneurs, we find that emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs are more likely to judge positively their entrepreneurial success in terms of: employee satisfaction, social responsibility, personal satisfaction, customer satisfaction and business performance. Furthermore, not all EI dimensions are equally relevant to explain self-perceived success. In this respect, we find that the (self-perceived) ability to regulate emotions of other people is most strongly linked to entrepreneurial success. Keywords: Emotional intelligence, regulate emotions of other people, (self-perceived) success criteria, entrepreneurial success, Dutch entrepreneurs ; Haibo Zhou (NIKOS-ESIM, University of Twente, The Netherlands) and Ana Maria Bojica (Faculty of Economics and Business Studies, University of Granada, Spain)